Tenth Sunday in Ordinary TimeTenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Year B
Readings: Genesis 3:9-15, 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1, Mark 3:20-35.
The One Who Does the Will of God
Doing the will of God is the theme of this Sunday’s liturgy. Obedience tothe will of God was the mission of Jesus. He obeyed God all through his lifeand he invites us to do the same. On the other hand, the first reading shows us the first sin committed by the humankind; by disobeying God’s word the man and the woman hide away from God. They blame the other for their act of disobedience and they break the will of God. They go astray from God and fail to feel the loving embrace of God.
On the other hand, Jesus is treated badly by his own family members asthey think ‘he is out of his mind,’ in other words, he has lost his mind! He sounds crazy to his own people, he is too radical to the religious authorities ofhis day, he is a rebel for he challenges the interpretation of the scriptures by the teachers of the Law, and he needs to be taken charge of!
Interestingly, when Jesus’ family arrives at the scene, they have no accessto him due to the sheer number of people gathered there. So, they send him amessage of their arrival. When Jesus learns of their presence, he makes the solemn proclamation, “Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother.”
Doing the will of God is to be our paramount responsibility. And when we do follow in Jesus’s footsteps, we will be challenged and could be treated assomeone who has lost his/her mind. But in doing the will of God, we will follow what God wants us to be, even though we may be branded ‘crazy’.
In reality, it is such people, who have brought changes to our lives; for example, the founder of our congregation (The Society of the Divine Word), St Arnold Janssen was criticised by his contemporaries as ‘Fool or a Saint,’ for his idea of setting up a missionary congregation when Germany was under the Kulturkamph. He was regarded as crazy, for the church activities were suppressed in Germany, and here he is going to start a missionary congregation! He did go ahead and began the missionary society in 1875. Today we are spreadall over the world carrying God’s good news through our missionary activities. If he had not been ‘crazy’ at that time, the congregation wouldn’t have existed and I wouldn’t have been able to write this article on the Divine Word Missionaries’ web page!
We are the followers of Christ. We are called to do God’s will. Let us go ahead boldly, following what God says and live a meaningful life, witnessing to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Amen.